An update on the Stone crowd-funding campaign

The Stone logo already appears in the window of what will be the Berlin brewery’s main hall. (Stone Brewing Co.)

Greg Koch has made it a little less expensive to support Stone Brewing Co.’s planned expansion to Berlin.

You can read my story about the overseas incursion and what it says about the U.S. craft beer scene in today’s Business section or here on HoustonChronicle.com.

As noted here last Saturday, Stone has committed $25 million to get the brewery, restaurant and company store complex up and running but is asking fans to participate in a crowd-funding campaign on indiegogo.com to speed things up.

That prompted one Beer, TX reader to reply on Twitter to the news Stone planned to build a brewery: “*IF* others pay for it.”

A fair point for a company that earned $137 million last year, and apparently one that others also raised.

When I spoke to Koch about the plans for today’s Chronicle story, he reiterated the the brewery will go forward regardless. He said the crowd-funding effort is a way to build interest and help get things going. He noted that all donors will receive a special gift, from special collaboration beers that will be brewed in Germany to beer dinners or grand-opening event invitations.

When the campaign was announced, the collaboration beers were offered for donations of $50. One eye-catcher was a proposed weekend at the San Diego loft of Koch, who is a co-founder and CEO of Stone. That one was advertised for $30,000.

Koch told me the item was meant tongue in cheek but acknowledged that some people found it presumptuous on his part. He decided to take that off the board.

He also reduced the donation level to get those special beers to $30 as part of an effort to get more people involved.

Koch said he also heard about another misperception: that the overseas brewery was costing American jobs. He said that, in fact, the Berlin operation will allow Stone to add jobs on these shores. The brewery already employs nearly 1,000 people, and that number will certainly grow when the company gets its eastern U.S. brewery up and running.

Expect Stone to announce where that new brewery will be in one to three months.